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Amino Acid Composition of Cecal Contents and Feces in Germfree and Conventional Rabbits¹

Lobund Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

Germfree rabbits, which do not spontaneously consume their soft feces, were used to demonstrate that the stress of collaring for the prevention of corporphagy does not in itself cause any important change in the chemical composition of the hard and soft feces. Germfree and collared conventional rabbits were then used for comparing the amino acid compositions of their hard and soft feces and cecal contents. The conventional feces contained more total amino acids per gram nitrogen than the germfree feces. The cecal contents and feces of conventional rabbits also contained a higher percentage of their total amino acids as essential amino acids than did the germfree samples. Every essential amino acid except histidine showed a higher level in conventional than in germ-free feces (per gram nitrogen). The increase, expressed as a percentage of the germfree level, was particularly marked in the case of methionine (127%), lysine (40%), isoleucine (40%) and valine (37%).

² Present address: Tachikawa College of Tokyo, Akishima-shi, Tokyo, Japan.

Manuscript received 22 January 1971.